INDIA’S NEW CRICKET COACH GOES TO BAT FOR VEGANISM
(5 June 2005)

Greg Chappell is undoubtedly a busy man. Between being unanimously chosen as India’s new cricket coach, writing books and providing online coaching on ChappellWay.com, former Australian cricket captain and living legend Greg Chappell still found the time to team up with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India to create a new ad in which he goes to bat for veganism – a diet free of meat, eggs and dairy products. Chappell recommends veganism for everyone from athletes to businessmen and attributes his own good health to his vegan diet. The full-colour ad features Chappell holding a bat with the tagline “Don’t settle for less than a century. Go vegan!”

In his book Health and Fitness, Chappell says that giving up meat and dairy products in favour of healthier foods like soy and vegetables made him feel stronger and fitter. “We are the only species of animal on earth that still consumes milk products after being weaned”, he writes. “To make things worse, we do not even consume our own milk products but get them from another kind of animal. Dairy milk is a perfectly balanced food for calves but for nothing else. It does contain certain nutrients, but it also contains things which do us much more harm than the nutrients do us good.”

Research indicates that most Asians are lactose intolerant. When lactose-intolerant people consume dairy products, they can suffer abdominal cramps, skin rashes, coughing and other problems. When Chappell became vegan, he discovered that the illnesses that had plagued him all his life disappeared. Chappell wrote, “I gave up red meat at the same time as I gave up dairy foods, but while the benefits of avoiding red meat took awhile to become evident, the effect of giving up dairy foods was immediate. Clearly, I had been showing all the symptoms of lactose intolerance. Within days, literally, of giving up milk and cheese, these symptoms disappeared”.

The world’s most nutrition-conscious doctors now advocate a vegan diet. Dr T. Colin Campbell of Cornell University in the US reports that “the vast majority … of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases and other forms of degenerative illness can be prevented … simply by adopting a plant-based diet”. Dr Dean Ornish of the University of California has demonstrated that artery blockages can be reversed with a low-fat vegetarian diet.

A vegan diet also saves the lives of animals. More than 900 million mammals and birds and billions of fish are killed for food each year for the UK alone. In his or her lifetime, the average British meat-eater is responsible for the abuse and death of more than 1,800 animals.

Chappell joins Indian cricketer Anil Kumble and American tennis star Martina Navratilova, who have also appeared in ads promoting healthful veggie foods.

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